In recent years, users who used a facility have posted evaluation information that indicates an evaluation of the facility to bulletin boards on websites, personal web pages, blogs, and the like. Users therefore can browse evaluation information at bulletin boards on websites, web pages, blogs, and the like. Users can determine whether to use a facility based on the evaluation information they have browsed.
Also, in recent years, there is known technology in which, instead of a user actively browsing bulletin boards on websites, web pages, blogs and the like, an information distribution apparatus collects evaluation information from users, and distributes the collected evaluation information to the portable terminals of an unspecified number of users, or to the portable terminals of users who desire the evaluation information (e.g., see Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2001-350941A and Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2003-30376A). Such an information distribution apparatus determines whether to distribute the evaluation information in accordance with, for example, the current location of a user's portable terminal. Specifically, if the current location of the portable terminal is within a certain range (distribution range) from a facility whose evaluation information is to be distributed, the information distribution apparatus distributes such evaluation information to the user's portable terminal.
Here, if the distribution range is a wide range, there is the problem that evaluation information is distributed to the portable terminals of users who have no intention at all of visiting the facility in the evaluation information, such as users who are far away from the facility. In order to address such a problem, an information distribution apparatus having a limited distribution range has been proposed (e.g., see Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2005-345325A). However, if the distribution range is limited, there are cases in which, contrary to the above problem, evaluation information is not distributed to the portable terminals of users who desire the distribution of the evaluation information. In view of this, there has been a proposal for an information distribution apparatus that dynamically changes the distribution range in accordance with whether users have browsed the evaluation information (e.g., see Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2006-60454A). Specifically, this information distribution apparatus enlarges the distribution range if the number of users who have browsed the evaluation information is large, and reduces the distribution range if this number is small.